July 30, 2015

The sweet finishing touch for my birthday Summer tapas was this almond cake served together with orange sauce. The original recipe can be found in the cooking book "Politikens bog om tapas" by Anne Hjernøe.

I made no changes to the original recipe. Another time I think I will be twist the taste by addition of some orange flower water.

Almond cake:

250 g butter - melted

150 g almond flour - blend almonds with their skin into flour in a blender

100 g (cake) flour

250 g icing sugar

organic orange - only the zest

6 egg whites

Heat up the (conventional) oven to 210'C.

Whip almond flour, flour, icing sugar and orange zest together in the mixing bowl on the KitchenAid on speed 1.

July 25, 2015

I have found this recipe on salted almonds on the blog "Maden i mit liv", and I have made no modifications to it.

My birthday guests did their best to eat all these almonds, however I had saved a portion for myself for later indulgence !! The comments to the almonds were, that they were very good and not too salty, which salted almonds sometimes can be.

I will for sure be making these almonds again, perhaps the taste with various herb addition.

Salted almonds:

200 g almonds

4 tablespoons of sea salt

400 g boiling water

Start by dissolving the sea salt in the boiling water in a bowl, before the almonds are into this salt solution.

Let the almonds soak for 20-25 minutes with a lid covering the bowl.

Remove the almonds from the salt solution.

Heat up the (conventional) oven to 200'C.

Spread the almonds on a baking tray covered with baking paper.

Roast the almonds at 200'C for 8-10 minutes, mix around the almonds one or two times during the roasting process.

July 23, 2015

My cousin once gave me two cooking books as birthday gift with focus on tapas. One of these cooking books were "Politikens bog om tapas" written by Anne Hjernøe. It is a great book full of wonderful food pictures, easy understandable recipes and many of the recipe contains additional comments as other ingredients to use instead of and how to twist the individual dish.

These books were of great assistance for me, when I made Summer tapas as birthday menu. This bread is a very white bread without any wholegrain flour instead. I decided to add in some sour dough together with the yeast, so I could lower the level of sour dough living in my refrigerator. However, if you have no sour dough, just use yeast as in the original recipe.

Tapas bread a la Anne Hjernøe: - 3 breads

15 g yeast

15 g sour dough - optional

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon honey

500 g wheat flour

175 g durum flour

olive oil for bread glazing

Stir the yeast, sour dough, salt and honey into the water part.

Add in all the flour.

Knead the dough for 10 minutes on speed two using stand-alone mixer.

Place the dough in bowl, which is sealed with cling film or lid.

Raise the bread in the refrigerator night over or minimum 8 hours.

Divide the dough into 3 pieces, which is form into flutes and placed a baking tray covered with baking paper. Cover the dough with a tea towel.

July 21, 2015

Again I have been juicing, as I have received a new box of JuiceSelvKassen. This looks very, very green, and this juice has turned to be the most disliked juice I have every taste !!!! It taste was very bitter, and if I was drinking too large a portion of this juice I felt like throwing up, so I ended up with throwing out this juice instead of throwing it up !!!!

It was to be a very healthy juice, when it tastes as ugly as it does !!!! I will never ever make this juice again !!!!

July 19, 2015

Better late than never ! Yesterday evening it was time to celebrate my birthday together with some amazing and wonderful women. I decided, that tapas should be the theme for the served food and wine.

Tapas is actually an easy way of entertaining people, when you have to do the cooking yourself, as most of the food can be prepared in advance, followed by cooking up the food in the oven, just before serving it.

As starting point we enjoyed tapas bread served together with olive oil, cocktail tomatoes, salted almonds and green olives. You can turn a simple tomato into a taste feast by cutting it into two or four pieces, which when is sprinkled with ramson salt

Second (cold) dish was gazpacho, which is cold uncooked tomato soup, which is a wonderful dish for a hot Summer day, as it does not involve any cooking at all.

Third (either cold or warm) dish was fish cakes based on scrimps - great taste.

As the "only" really hot meal was served stuffed courgettes with a salad made from rocket, apricot, Serrano ham and goat cheese.

July 14, 2015

For my birthday coffee guests I created this great looking raspberry cream cake a la Mette Blomsterberg with a few adjustments, as I used more frozen raspberry without increasing the sugar amount. This gives you an excellent fresh fruit taste in combination with the marzipan without becoming over sweet in the taste.

I also decided not to use whie chocolate for the decoration of the cake, as I plenty of whipped dairy cream for the decoration part of the final cake.

It was the first time ever, that I tried to make a marzipan cover for the side, so here there is room for improvement on the look :-)

Raspberry cream cake a la Mette Blomsterberg: - 12-14 servings

Almond cake buns:

100 g pasteurised egg yolks

65 g sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

100 g (cake) wheat flour

50 g almonds - grated into fine powder

200 g pasteurised egg white

Raspberry mousse:

6 leaves of gelatine

300 g (frozen) raspberries - defrosted

50 g icing sugar

½ l dairy whipping cream

½ vanilla pod

Marzipan cover:

200 g marzipan

100 g icing sugar

25 g glucose syrup

For cake decoration:

4-5 dl dairy whipping cream

min. 12-16 fresh raspberries

Almond cake buns:

Whip egg yolk and sugar with an electrical whipper into a thick foamy egg mass.

Mix wheat flour and baking powder together and pass it through a sieve.

July 07, 2015

Another great tasting juice from JuiceSelvKassen. In my opinion you could increase the level of ginger, so you will get more beat to your heart drinking this juice. I would increase the dosage from 4 cm to 6 cm next time, that I make this juice.

HEARTBEAT:- 4 servings

1 lemon with peel

300 g carrots

3 redbeets

4 apples

4 cm of ginger with peel

2 oranges without peel

Clean the ingredients.

Juice everything together.

Serve in the glass and store the remaining juice cold in the refrigerator